​SOUTHPORT, England – There’s no friendly handshake at Royal Birkdale Golf Club.Brandt Snedeker calls the 447-yard par-4 opener, a slight dogleg left, “probably the hardest opening hole in major championship golf.” Matt Kuchar, the runner-up in 2017 here, says the first can be “a bit of a rude awakening.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“It’s shockingly narrow and tight with dunes on each side that you have to thread it through,” he said. “You step up on the first tee and it’s crucial to hit the fairway or else big numbers are coming your way.”Robert MacIntyre plays his tee shot on the first hole at Royal Birkdale, widely considered the toughest opening hole on the Open rota, during the first round of The Open Championship.Tom Watson, who won at Birkdale in 1983, tabbed it is a risk-reward hole in which players must choose how far to hit to take advantage of an easier second shot. In the 1976 Open, Watson drove into the left fairway bunker and made triple bogey. “That ruined the tournament for me,” he said. Stewart Cink, the 2009 Open champ who edged Watson in a playoff, can relate. Cink opened the 154th Open with a triple-bogey 7 on Thursday morning.The first hole of Royal Birkdale played much longer in the first few Opens to be held here, with the original tee located near to where the practice putting green now sits. In 1954 and 1961 it measured 520 yards and was reduced to 493 yards for the 1965 and 1971 Opens when it played as a par 5. For 1976, the tee was moved to its current position and the hole was reduced to a par 4.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEver since, there’s been no easing into Birkdale. The Club is proud of the hole’s reputation as the hardest opening hole on The Open rota, with a stroke average in 2008 of 4.52 the highest figure to par ever recorded for a first hole. At the last two Opens at Birkdale, the first has played as the second toughest hole (behind only the par-4 sixth).Adding to the difficulty is out of bounds lining the right side and flirting with the fairway. The hole bends slightly left with a solitary pot bunker on the corner and two more guarding the putting surface. There are two choices at this demanding tee shot. Some players will be aggressive and hit driver, which is what players tend to do when there’s nothing on the line. But this is The Open. The greenkeeper’s sheds down the left can suddenly change minds. Expect to see the majority of players choose positioning over power and take an iron to play safe to finish around level with the bunker on the left, but it leaves a longer approach so it’s then about making par and moving on.In the final round of the 2008 Open, Padraig Harrington trailed 54-hole leader Greg Norman by three shots. Norman was the best driver of the golf ball of his generation and he had a driver in his hands up until it was his turn to play, when he switched back to an iron. As they say, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.